1. Field of the Invention
The field of the present invention includes the tracking and processing of items. In particular, the present invention involves the communication of sorting instructions to a person during the processing of parcels.
2. Description of Related Art
The manual sorting or item-processing environment is readily described as a wide range of event-based stimuli with physical dynamic activity. For example, the current state of parcel processing is one where people who process parcels within a manual sorting facility are continually reading package information from each package's label. Given the acquired information, a range of decision types and activity are possible for each job type (the “per-package decision process”). Items are moved between job positions in sorting facilities using a flexible array of conveyor belts, slides, trays, bags, carts, etc. Large-scale item processors, such as for example, UPS, have a substantial investment in the numerous facilities, plant equipment configurations, and training needed to provide the current state of the process.
Any attempt to use technology to aid the per-item decision process is hampered by the high cost of inserting technology into existing manual package-processing environments. Challenges with the use of technology are also present in the form of space constraints as well as the flow of items in a processing environment.
The biggest cost impacts of technology insertion are in providing stations to electronically acquire or read item data and providing stations to display or generate item sorting and/or processing instructions. The difficulty in minimizing these costs is that the accumulated exception rates for item processing is often very high. Factors that contribute to this exception rate include errors in conventional label codes scanning, address validation problems, package data availability, and package dimensional conformity. Therefore, a large expense is incurred in item processing by the need and processes of exception handling capabilities.
Many conventional item-processing systems utilize on-the-floor item processing exception areas where an exception item is physically removed from the processing system and handled on an expensive and labor intensive individual basis. These on-the-floor areas may adversely impact the processing facility's balance of facility configuration, productivity, methods and throughput.
In some instances, off-the-floor exception handling may be able to reduce physical exception handling. These systems may use item acquire and re-acquire stations whereby instances of label acquisition exceptions and instruction-change exceptions are handled electronically rather than manually. However, the use of off-the-floor exception areas enabled by fixed item acquire and re-acquire stations imposes an early processing deadline and does not allow for instruction changes after an item has passed the re-acquire station. Also, this method still requires considerable on-the-floor equipment for both, acquire and re-acquire stations.
Embodiments of the present invention overcome many of the challenges present in the art, some of which are presented above.